Matildas superstar Sam Kerr is the role model she never had

WHEN she’s not driving the Matildas to global stardom, Sam Kerr has one job on her mind — she wants to be the role model she never had growing up.

The superstar striker, who has become as well known on the field for her backflips as her goals, is proving to young girls everywhere they can be just as good as the boys, if not better.

First called up for the Matildas almost a decade ago and now one of the biggest names in women’s football, Kerr is in effect the role model she would have liked when she was younger.

“Growing up I didn’t really have many female role models,” the 24-year-old from Western Australia tells 9Honey.

“[The Matildas] are really proud that we can be household names and be role models now for young girls growing up, instead of having male athletes to look up to.

“We definitely understand that people are watching what we do.”

Kerr’s advice for aspiring young female sports stars is always the same: “Work hard but have fun”.

“Sometimes I forget why I started playing the game and that was to have fun,” she explains. “There’s always the serious side of it but keep the light-hearted side of it too and enjoy what you’re doing.”

“If I didn’t enjoy what I was doing I wouldn’t be playing,” she adds, admitting the pressure of knowing “there’s so much on the line” can sometimes take its toll.

Despite being uncomfortable under the personal spotlight, Kerr says she’s happy with the current hype surrounding the Matildas.

“It’s what we’ve been wanting for the last couple of years and we’ve always known we can be a name in every household and good rodels.

“When it’s based on the Matildas rather than myself — I don’t love talking about myself — I love promoting the women’s game and I love promoting the Matildas. I love interacting with all the fans and all the sort of stuff. Its part of the job but something we love doing too it’s building our brand and building football as a whole.”

As for Australia’s newfound fascination with women’s football, Kerr puts it largely down to the Matildas’ success.

“I think it’s because Australians love supporting a winning team, it’s kind of an Australian thing as the team starts losing to jump off the bandwagon and start going against them.

“I think all the women’s teams are doing well at the moment, especially the Matildas, so I think that’s the reason why.”

For the past few months, Kerr and the Matildas have been the talk of Australian sport with the team now ranked sixth in the world — 37 places higher than their male counterparts, the Socceroos.

But she is quick to clarify that theirs is not an overnight success story.

“We’ve put in a lot of work, it hasn’t just happened overnight,” Kerr says adamantly. “We’ve been brewing on this for a couple of years now, so for all our work to all at once come alight is really good and it’s a massive honour because there’s so many good sporting teams in Australia.”

But Kerr says while many Australians still qualify these achievements with the word ‘female’, this is not how she and her teammates think.

“We’ve always just thought of it as sport whether it’s women’s sport or men's sport and I think maybe that’s a female thing, I don’t know if men think the same.”

“We put in just as many hours, sacrifice just as much to be there — maybe we don’t get paid as much — but we do just as much as the men and to us, it’s just sport so hopefully one day Australia will think like that.”

When it comes to the team’s ultimate goal, Kerr doesn’t hesitate.

“Win a World Cup, that’s it.”

Something she is adamant is “100 percent doable”.

“I think these next few years will be our best shot. We’re doing really well, we’re sixth in the world, we’re beating the top nations. We’ve got a log of improving to do and we’ve still got a year and a half to the World Cup so we’re looking forward to it.”